There is known a plating apparatus for plating a substrate held by a substrate holder. In such a plating apparatus, the substrate holder is stored in a storage container before an operation of the plating apparatus, and is taken out of the storage container when the operation of the plating apparatus is started. The substrate, such as a wafer, is set on the substrate holder, and the substrate holder with the substrate held thereon is transported to a processing section by a transport machine. The substrate is then plated in the processing section.
When the substrate is set on the substrate holder, the substrate is checked whether the substrate is properly set on the substrate holder. If the substrate is not properly set on the substrate holder, the substrate holder is returned to the storage container without being transported to the processing section, and then a worker conducts maintenance of the substrate holder.
In recent years, a size of a substrate conspicuously tends to increase in a substrate processing apparatus including the plating apparatus. As the size of the substrate increases, a size of a substrate holder increases and its weight also increases. Maintenance of the substrate holder is conventionally performed by carrying the substrate holder into a maintenance area outside the apparatus. However, such an operation of carrying the substrate holder with an increased weight to the maintenance area outside the apparatus entails a large load on the worker (a load in terms of time and work).
In the meantime, the transport machine for transporting the substrate holder continuously passes over the storage container during the operation of the apparatus. Under such a circumstance, for maintenance of the substrate holder, when the worker tries to take the substrate holder out of the storage container, the worker may collide with the moving substrate holder or the moving transport machine. Therefore, during the maintenance work of the substrate holder, the apparatus was forced to stop its operation. However, the stoppage of the operation of the plating apparatus for maintenance of the substrate holder results in a lowered operation rate of the apparatus and a lowered productivity.